REBEL (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Rebel, Yellow Veil Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 14, 2023

A harrowing depiction of the insidious nature of militant fanaticism, Rebel tells its story with verve, sympathy, and a sense of style that's as unapologetic as its horrifyingly logical plot. The film, set a few years into the ongoing Syrian civil war, follows a family of three as they must deal with the violent and manipulative means of the so-called Islamic State to indoctrinate, coerce, and recruit young men and even children into their ranks. The relative ease of this process, as the group specifically targets men and boys who feel the need to do good or the absence of any purpose, is chilling, but co-writers/directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah ensure that we understand it as much we witness the devastating consequences.

It's a powerful story, filled with despair but vital in the way it makes its characters, their lives, and their gradual fall into the darkness of a perceived holy way comprehensible. We must see, learn about, and understand such things, which—as even recent history has shown us—are not relegated to a single religion or ethnicity or socioeconomic group.

It is human nature to look for meaningful action and answers within the confusion and chaos of the world. Many believe they can find that meaning in religion or politics. Some find a terrible appeal to the violence inherent to groups like the Islamic State. If only to maintain some belief in the basic decency of people, one can hope that most who fall into the trap established by such groups, such as the two brothers portrayed here, have good intentions used against them or, because of age, are incapable of comprehending what they are doing. There isn't much hope to found in this tale, so that's at least one idea to cling to, because a basically good heart or uncertain mind can be saved or changed again.

The essentially decent heart belongs to older brother Kamal Wasaki (Aboubakr Bensaihi), an Arabic young man of Moroccan origin whose family resides in Brussels. The screenplay, written by the co-directors with Kevin Meul and Jan van Dyck, introduces us to Kamal in a situation that would seem to make him and his actions unforgivably awful. He's part of an Islamic State firing squad somewhere in Syria, where a leader of the group is preparing for the summary execution of soldiers connected to dictator Bashar al-Assad. These killings are presented within the context of a propaganda video for the group, and Kamal looks as determined and unfazed at what he's about to do as his fellow executioners.

Appearances can be deceiving, which is also one of the core tenets of propaganda. We gradually learn how Kamal found himself in Syria, associated with the Islamic State, and standing in a line with a pistol aimed at the head of one man among a row of them. That story is not one of religious fanaticism or any kind of belief in anything other than the necessity of his own survival.

As for how he ended up in Syria in the first place, that has to do with his history in Belgium, as an aspiring rapper who faces prejudice and targeting by the local police. He is a regular marijuana user and small-time dealer, but in one of a few musical interludes that serve as inner monologues while slightly break up the story's objective perspective and dire realism, Kamal wonders what other choice he had? In a place that treats him like an "other" and a criminal just because of his heritage, it's not as if opportunities came to him easily or at all.

In that same rap, Kamal has an awakening while watching footage out of Syria—of men, women, and children being killed by Assad's forces and realizing that the rest of the world seems apathetic to the plight of people there. That scene rises in intensity, not only in the lyrics, but also in the imagery, as Arbi and Fallah send Kamal into a world literally turned upside-down, imagining the chaotic horror of ordinary life interrupted or ceased entirely by the gunfire and explosions of armed conflict. Most of the film plays as a straightforward drama, but in these sequences, the representational approach gives us an intimate sense of the inner turmoil of these characters—Kamal's decision to leave home, turmoil of Syrian woman Noor (Tara Abboud) being auctioned and sold like chattel as Kamal's wife, a mother's desperation to save at least one son.

The mother, by the way, is Leila (Lubna Azabal), who works for a cleaning service in Brussels while raising her two children, and the other brother is 12-year-old Nassim (Amir El Arbi, the co-director's own younger brother). As Kamal goes through the terror and horror of the war after being forced into the Islamic State under the implicit threat of death, Nassim finds himself unwittingly becoming the target of recruitment into that organization at home.

The tactics of doing so are sinister in their simplicity, as Idriss (Fouad Hajji), a local recruiter for the Islamic State, knows of Kamal's move to Syria and his forced enlistment into the organization. It's just a matter of him talking to Nassim, getting the boy to trust him, and using some false story of Kamal's sincere belief in the cause to start convincing the younger brother that he should be more like the elder one, whom the kid loves and admires so. It's a terrible, self-contained cycle of lies and psychological manipulation, targeting a young boy who just wants to fit in with young men whom he looks up to—especially with so many dismissing the boy's beloved Kamal as nothing more than a criminal who became a terrorist.

He is more than that, of course, and so is Nassim, just as Leila comes to prove she's much more than a mother who, as some would say, has "failed" her two sons. There are undeniable failures to be found within the story and the underlying, real-world context of Rebel, but they don't belong to these characters, who do the best they can under impossible circumstances that lead, inevitably, toward an unspeakable moment of equal love and tragedy. If we can see that, there might be even a little more hope, as unlikely as it seems, to be found here.

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